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Bulgaria: Orthodox Church Says ‘Don’t Let Muslims In’

Patriarch Maxim of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church participates in an Orthodox Easter service in the golden-domed Alexander Nevski cathedral in Sofia on April 15, 2012. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church celebrated Easter, according to the Julian calendar. AFP PHOTO / NIKOLAY DOYCHINOV (Photo credit should read NIKOLAY DOYCHINOV/AFP/Getty Images)

Patriarch Maxim of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church participates in an Orthodox Easter service in the golden-domed Alexander Nevski cathedral in Sofia on April 15, 2012. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church celebrated Easter, according to the Julian calendar. AFP PHOTO / NIKOLAY DOYCHINOV (Photo credit should read NIKOLAY DOYCHINOV/AFP/Getty Images)

This exemplifies the issue with leaders in an institutionalized religion that is wedded to a certain narrative of xenophobic nationalism. It is not limited to the Orthodox Church but can be seen coming from the voices of far too many religio-political figures. Clearly, these people are out of touch with the original and deep teachings of their faiths.

MiddleEastEye

Bulgaria’s Orthodox Church has called on its government not to let any more Muslim refugees into the country to prevent an “invasion”.

The Balkan EU member has largely been bypassed by the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict and poverty, many of whom set off from Greece through neighbouring Macedonia and Serbia towards northern Europe.

But Bulgaria has still seen Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis cross its southeastern border from Turkey.

“We help refugees who have already arrived in our motherland, but the government must absolutely not let more refugees in,” the church, which claims 80 percent of the population as its followers, said late Friday on its website.

“This is a wave that looks like an invasion.”

It added that the problems in the refugees’ countries of origin “must be resolved by those who created them and the Bulgarian people must not pay the price by disappearing”.

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    • Capt. J.B. Hennessy

      When they funded the overthrow of legitimate leader al Assad. That is how one starts a civil war, just like when the US decided to fund and train Cubans to overthrow Fidel Castro and in Guatemala engineered the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz. A decades long civil war ensued in which some 200,000 people were killed, mostly by the US backed military.

    • Friend of Bosnia

      I wouldn’t want to claim that I’m better than others. I don’t see myself as an arrogant person. But at least I think I have my heart on the right spot. I’m not an inhuman, racist, Fascist, bigot, genocidal Nazi twerp. But I’m ten thousand times better and worthy than such individuals. To me, they represent everything that is hateful and despicable about mankind, and they should be given the same degree of cruelty they so callously inflict on others. And I do not mean just those who actually have blood of Innocents on their hands. I mean also and before all the instigators, propagandists and ideologists as well, and the idiots who follow them. Milosevic’s cronies who still run the Show in Serbia; Putin; Geert Wilders; the Le Pens; Viktor Orban and all the other rightist populists in Europe; the cetniks; Pegida AfD and all such similar Groups; Skinheads, KKK and all such dspicable scum – everything I HATE and DESPISE about mankind is embodied in These. They deserve no mercy and no quarter, they deserve to be erased from the face of the Earth, they deserve a most hideous nd painful death, they have earned themselves a place in Hell. And should any one of those Fascist evil bigoted genocidal BLOCKHEADS even try to inflict any bodily harm on me, even if it’s just a scratch, then I will KILL him with MY OWN HANDS!!! Should any swine-faced, swine-mannered (cross-kissing or not -actually the atheists are worse) sons of SWINE try to run me out of my house, my hometown, my Country, then I promise that I will take down to the nether-world EIGHT kuffar side-boys with me!!! Didja hear me, you Fascist swine and morons out there? Didja hear me?!?!!!

    • Friend of Bosnia

      This will not work. They will never agree on who gets what territories. Besides that, in BiH it would leave the Bosniaks – 50% of the population – on just 25% of the land. Many would have to give up their hometowns forever. Not only that, teh 25% would be two landlocked, separated enclaves, surrounded by hostile peoples on all sides, unable to communicate with each other, cut off from the outside world, economically unviable. A second West Bank and Gaza Strip. It would lead to the Bosmiaks’ radicalization, and then their enemies would have an pretext to eliminate them. Help from the outside is not to be expected. On the contrary. Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary refuse to do their part in the current Middle Eastern refugee crisis. Germany could cut off financial aid to them. Then the would turn to Putin. Next, Dodik pulls through his Referendum, effectively ripping Bosnia-Herzegovina apart. The Croats will reclaim their part of Bosdnia. Leaving teh Bosiaks in the predicament I described above. Of Course then teh Bosniaks will Resort to Military means, to avoid that grim fate. What happens next? Oh, the Bosniaks will initially score some success. And then Serbia intervenes. As that will not be sufficient, they will cry for help to Putin, and like in Syria, Putin will dispatch air force and ground Units with the connival of Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. I think the Hungarns, ROmanians and Bulgarians will even allow Russian ships to unload supplies and troops for Serbia and to let Russian military convoys use theior roads, and Russian Military Trains on their railroads. To top that off Russia will fire cruise Missiles at the Bosniaks from warships in the Black Sea, or the Mediterranean, or the Adriatic. To crush the Bosniaks as they are doing with the anti-Assad Opposition in Syria today. And then they can smear the Bosniaks as “IS” And annihilate them with full impunity. – As they themselves put it: “Kill one third, expel one third, Assimilate (convert to Christianity) one third”. Finis Bosniae? 1492 all over again? If those who can do something about it stand aside and let it happen, or make another foul compromise with Putin, then I can tell you that such a world is not worth living in, and that then Mankind does not deserve to continue existing.

    • George Carty

      Thanks – I was of course thinking of the Second Balkan War.

    • Friend of Bosnia

      When the Serbs invaded Albania.

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